My new exercise and dieting program has continued to go well through March. I was even able to get one day ahead in my workout schedule. I’ve started getting some random aches and pains, so we’ll see how the next couple weeks go, but overall the exercise schedule has been working out well.

Diet continues to be the main stumbling block. Though I’ve placed some restrictions on myself, and have cut out a lot of the worst offenders, the mind is an ingenious source of creative workarounds. But in a way, that’s ok – as I stated last month, the goal isn’t to cut away every bad habit in one fell swoop – rather, it’s to create good habits one at a time, give them time to sink in, and not try to bite off more than I can chew.

Work, it must be said, continues to provide too many temptations. Last month I cut out fried food, meat, and the snack wall, but it’s just too easy to snap up a piece of leftover pizza from a collaboration area when I had no intention of doing so. It’s time to take the next major step. Going forward, at work I’ll only allow myself raw fruit and vegetables, yogurt, coffee, seltzer (of course), and food I bring in myself. No sugar in my coffee, Dunkin’ Donuts or Papa Gino’s.

So yes, I can still have that biscotto I brought in, but no hoofing it across the street for an Egg DunkMuffin and hashbrowns. Fruit salad from the lunch line is fine, but no oily quinoa salad. No munching on random cookies, cake, muffins, donuts, bagels, banana bread – whatever – that someone else brought in. No leftover pizza or sandwiches.

This may sound extreme, but the beauty of the gradualist approach is that it isn’t actually that different from what I’m already doing. I’m sure I’ll come up with creative ways to get around the restrictions, but that will be a subject for next month.

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